The Logic of Exemplarity
Jakub Macha
Abstract, The topic of exemplarity has attracted considerable interest in
philosophy, legal theory, literary studies and art recently. There is broad
consensus that exemplary cases mediate between singular instances and
general concepts or norms. The aim of this article is to provide an
additional perspective on the logic of exemplarity. First, inspired by
Jacques Derrida’s discussion of exemplarity, I shall argue that there is a
kind of differance between (singular) examples and (general) exemplars.
What an example exempliﬁes, the exemplarity of the example, eludes
any ﬁxed identity and follows a logic of supplement. Second, I shall
present the so-called logic of exemplarity. The received paraconsistent
view has it that the exemplar of X is an X and, at the same time, is not
an X. Inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s discussion of the standard
metre, I would like to present an alternative paracomplete view whereby
we can say of an exemplar of X neither that it is an X nor that it is not
an X.
Keywords, exemplarity,
example, singularity,
universality, standard metre,
differance, paraconsistent and
paracomplete logic, Jacques
Derrida, Ludwig Wittgenstein
INTRODUCTION
The topic of exemplarity has attracted considerable interest in philosophy, legal
theory, literary studies and art in the past ﬁfty years. We can begin with
Derrida’s deconstruction, which—as we will see—provides a kind of foundation
for thinking about exemplarity. Exemplarity has also been an important focus of
Giorgio Agamben’s work.1
My main focus in this article is, however, recent works
on exemplarity from the special issue of Law & Literature entitled “Exemplarity
and Its Normativity”, edited by Angela Condello and Alessandro Ferrara, and, in
particular, Condello’s book Between Ordinary and Extraordinary (2018).2
In what
follows, I offer an appreciative yet critical discussion of Condello and others that
aims to show the vital role of a deconstructive reading in revealing the intricate
complexity of exemplarity.
Let me ﬁrst state the basic view in these debates, which I take for granted as
my point of departure: exemplary cases mediate between singular instances and
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Law & Literature, PP. 1–15. ISSN 1535-685X, ELECTRONIC ISSN 1541-2601.
© 2020 by The Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2020.1779513
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general concepts or norms. This view can be traced back to Kant’s Critique of
Judgement and to Hegel’s subjective logic, with its conceptual moments of singularity,
particularity and universality. For Hegel, the plain distinction between a
singular instance and a universal concept is too simplistic. On the one hand, general
concepts and norms are too abstract; they do not come with any method for
applying them to singular instances. On the other, pure singularities do not
express anything universal beyond themselves. There is no obvious way that the
singular and the universal can be directly connected. Exemplarity is a way—or
one of the possible ways3
—to achieve this mediation. An example is a singular
case which points at something universal. An example is always an example of
X, where X is a universal concept.4
However, exemplarity is a broad topic, with varied terminology and applications
in several ﬁelds of study, and so it is sometimes difﬁcult to determine how
the mediation between the singular and the universal might work. Let us, ﬁrst,
try to make clear what kinds of entities can be exemplary. Very broadly put, we
can take any empirical category; after all, a category is empirical if one can—in
principle—give examples of it. More speciﬁcally, focusing on recent discussions,
things that can be exemplary include objects (e.g. a work of art), legal cases (in
law), human actions, deeds (in ethics), persons (in ethics and religion), experiments,
technological procedures or standard practices (in science).5
This list is
open-ended. We can study exemplarity in any ﬁeld of human activity, taking
account of these ﬁelds’ speciﬁc categories. In using the expression “exemplary
case”, I intend to cover all these categories.
Exemplarity is supposed to mediate between singularity and universality. One
strand of the terminology stresses the singular moment, while another emphasises
the universal moment. The following expressions belong to the ﬁrst strand:
“example”, “instance”, “illustration”, “token”, “case”; these expressions can be modiﬁed
by adjectives like “mere”, “arbitrary”, “undifferentiated”, “singular”. The latter
group, relating to the moment of universality, comprises expressions like
“exemplum”, “exemplar”, “model” and “paradigm” as well as less common words
like “specimen”, “archetype”, “prototype”, “modus”, “paragon”, “arche-example” and
“blueprint”. Sometimes a combination is used, as in “paradigmatic sample” or
“exemplary case”. Some expressions are limited to certain ﬁelds, such as law (e.g.
“landmark case” or “precedent”). The idea is that an example or an illustration of
X merely illustrates or exempliﬁes the universal concept X. An example of X is a
randomly picked element of X (or something that falls under X), whereas exemplars,
paradigms and their cognates have a normative function. As Alessandro
Ferrara puts it: “exemplary is what is as it should be.”6
The exemplar of X deﬁnes
the universal concept of X. To be an X means to be like the exemplar of X.7
Before moving on, let me highlight the terminological convention which I will
attempt to follow in this article (and which is in line with most of the literature
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mentioned above8
): the expression “example” indicates the singular moment,
whereas “exemplar” focuses on the universal moment.9
There are, however, expressions that fall between these two moments. We
often speak of “the best example”, “an ideal example”, “an exemplary example”,
“an example par excellence”, “a privileged example”, etc. These expressions, and
the fact that they are intelligible, indicate that there are differences among
examples in terms of their exemplifying function. One example can be better or
more suitable than another. What makes one example better is its proximity to
the exemplar. This consideration calls into question any strict distinction
between a singular or factual example and a universal or normative exemplar.
The next section attempts to deconstruct this distinction.
DECONSTRUCTING EXEMPLARITY
It may seem that many authors have failed to distinguish between examples and
exemplars. The aim of this section is to show that the reason why they have
been unable to make this distinction is that it is not a binary opposition. Our initial
problem is this: how does one get to know what properties are exempliﬁed by
a speciﬁc example? Given Kant’s famous example of a dog, one may ask whether
the colour of its fur or the number of legs it has belong to the essence of a dog, or
whether they are only accidental properties. In this case, there is no hesitation,
because we know the universal concept of dog. But what about a work of art? A
given work of art can exemplify many properties (many of them relational or secondary),
and we may not be sure which properties make this object a work of art
and which are only accidental (supplementary, by-playing). Or, to put it in the
useful terminology recently proposed by Tiziano Toracca, we do not know which
features are thin (shared by other examples) and which are thick (not shared by
other examples).10
It is thus indeterminate what exactly an example exempliﬁes.
For Derrida, this indeterminateness lies at the root of his deconstruction:
What example? This one. And certainly, when I say this very
example, I already say something more and something else; I say
something which goes beyond the tode ti, the this of the example.
The example itself, as such, overﬂows its singularity as much as
its identity. This is why there are no examples while at the same
time there are only examples; I have said this often about many
examples. The exemplarity of the example is clearly never the
exemplarity of the example. We can never be sure of having put
an end to this very old children’s game in which all the
discourses, philosophical or not, which have ever inspired
deconstructions, are entangled even by the performative ﬁction
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which consists in saying, starting up the game again, “take
precisely this example”.11
On my reading of this passage, Derrida is suggesting that a singular example
exempliﬁes more than it was supposed to exemplify. An example of X always
exempliﬁes something beyond X. For instance, an example of a dog can exemplify
the colour black. Hence, there is no ﬁxed identity of what is being exempliﬁed. In
one sense, there are no pure examples of a ﬁxed concept X; in another sense,
every example exempliﬁes a multitude of concepts.
This indeterminacy blocks or at least obscures the process of turning a mere
example into an exemplar. An example may, of course, become an exemplar only
if it is clear what is being exempliﬁed. The passage from the example to the
exemplar—or, as Gelley puts it, the thetic act of the elevation of a singular to
exemplary status12
—consists in reducing this indeterminacy, i.e. in determining
the exemplarity of the example. One obvious way to reduce this indeterminacy—
i.e. a way to ﬁnd out what is being exempliﬁed—is to consider more examples, a
series of examples. The idea is that by considering more examples we can—by an
inductive approximation or, in quite different terms, an eidetic variation—see
what they have in common (their thin features) and so get closer to grasping
what they exemplify.13
We can make this idea more radical by saying that examples
always come in series. So, for instance, Peter Goodrich says: “There is no
singular exemplum except as a momentary induction or, as used to be said illation
from the mutable and inconstant series of exempla, the inﬁnite particulars of
a law made only through the instances of its casuistic application.”14
However, the point of the deconstructive account of exemplarity is that this
straightforward passage from the example to the exemplar may not work. A series
of examples does not need to approximate the exemplar (which expresses the
universal concept). A series may go astray, never reaching the universal concept.
To show why this may be so, we have to consider what distinguishes examples
from each other within a series. An example appears in a vertical relation to the
universal concept it is supposed to exemplify and in a horizontal relation to
another example in the series. It matters where an example is situated in the
series. The difference among examples in the series lies in their accidental (or
thick) qualities. Here, however, these qualities are accidental with respect to the
general concept (law); i.e. they are not a part of the essence of the general concept.
However, if these accidental qualities nevertheless matter in some respect,
they must constitute some other concept, i.e. they must be essential with respect
to some other law.15
What kind of law is this?
Derrida says in Specters of Marx that “an example always carries beyond
itself: it thereby opens up a testamentary dimension”.16
In On Touching, he
writes that an example is “a simulacrum of a sample whose symptom would give
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away another, hidden teleology: the hand may not be an example among others
but the best metonymy of some other”.17
In a similar vein, in “Parergon” we read
that examples “can invert, unbalance, incline the natural movement into a parergonal
movement”.18
We have here a testamentary dimension, a hidden teleology,
a parergonal movement, a logic of supplementarity. These expressions
refer to the law that regulates the series of examples, or to be more precise, their
accidental qualities. This law must be different from (the law of) the general con-
cept.19
The most eloquent account of this difference is to be found in
Derrida’s Glas:
For example (the uniqueness of the example is destroyed by
itself, immediately elaborates the power of a generalizing organ),
the very moment we would claim to recapture there, in a
determined text, the work of an idiom, bound to a chain of proper
names and singular empirico-signifying conﬁgurations, glas also
names classiﬁcation, that is, inscription in networks of
generalities interlaced to inﬁnity, in genealogies of a structure
such that the crossings, couplings, switchings, detours, and
branchings never simply come under a semantic or formal law.20
An example—precisely by being an example—moves (or elaborates) towards
the general concept or law (as mentioned above, this usually happens by way of
an inductive generalisation or an eidetic reduction). This is to say that the
example, in producing a series, moves—by “the power of a generalizing organ”—
towards the exemplarity of the example, i.e. towards an exemplar/paradigm/
model. This movement, however, is not straightforward (like inductive generalisation);
it is full of crossings, couplings and detours which defy any “semantic or
formal law”.
We can restate our problem using this terminological apparatus: the other law
may override the (law of the) general concept.21
An emerging other law can be
taken to be the main focus of the series of examples. When responding to a work
of art, one can typically focus at ﬁrst on accidental, thick features (e.g. imprecise
lines and contours in painting, or malapropisms in literature). They may divert
the course of the series elsewhere, to a new concept (e.g. Impressionism, Dadaist
poetry). In science, meanwhile, according to Kuhn’s theory, focusing on anomalies
may lead to a scientiﬁc revolution and the establishment of a new paradigm (i.e.
exemplary theories and practices).22
What was previously accidental (a mistake,
an anomaly) becomes part of the essence of a new concept.
Hence, any attempt to ﬁnd out what is being exempliﬁed by an example, or
rather a series of examples, leaves something underdetermined. Such a series of
examples can lead to the exemplar of a universal concept, or it can override the
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MÁCHA • THE LOGIC OF EXEMPLARITY
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original universal concept and lead to another concept or law. On the one hand,
this means that any example is in part already an exemplar or points towards
an exemplar. On the other hand, the approximation of the exemplar by a series
of examples has no clear sense of closure. This means that every exemplar is in
part an example. The clear difference between (illustrative) examples and (normative)
exemplars should instead be understood as an interval with two poles. In
the remainder of this paper, I will sometimes use the compound “example/
exemplar” to mark this ultimate indistinguishability.
In a broader outline, a failure to eventually reach the exemplar is attributable
to the impenetrability of the original differance, with its endless play of deferrals
and nulliﬁcations. As a play, “[d]ifferance is the non-full, non-simple, structured
and differentiating origin of differences”.23
There is a differance between the
example and the exemplar. Although their written forms differ, phonetically the
difference between these words and their cognates may escape us. Differance is a
somehow ghostly limit, the ultimate horizon of thought. Thus, exemplarity as
this paradoxical structure—of an endless play and, at the same time, of the origin
of differentiated conceptuality—lies between the singular case and the general
concept or law.24
THE LOGIC OF INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION, PARACONSISTENCY AND
PARACOMPLETENESS
Just to reiterate: “example” and “exemplar” mark the poles of a deconstructive
interval of exemplarity. Let us look at their common etymological root, the Latin
exemplum. Even in Latin, both meanings—singular instance and universal
model—are preserved. Exemplum is derived from the verb eximere, which means
“to take out”, “remove”. The root emere means “take”, “buy” or “acquire”. Condello
rightly points out that “the term “exemplum” [ … ] recalls a mechanism of extraction
from a series of tokens”.25
The example/exemplar is thus taken out, removed
from the series it is supposed to exemplify. Agamben links this removal with the
(originally Greek) term “paradigm”:
What the example shows is its belonging to a class, but for this
very reason the example steps out of its class in the very moment
in which it exhibits and delimits it [ … ]. If one now asks if the
rule applies to the example, the answer is not easy, since the
rule applies to the example only as to a normal case and
obviously not as to an example. The example is thus excluded
from the normal case not because it does not belong to it but, on
the contrary, because it exhibits its own belonging to it. The
example is truly a paradigm in the etymological sense: it is what
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is “shown beside,” and a class can contain everything except its
own paradigm.26
These terms, the singular example as well as the universal exemplar/paradigm,
have a dual nature; they mark a removal from the very class they stand for (as an
example and as an exemplar) and, at the same time, they belong to this class. To
put it in a simple yet radical form: an example/exemplar of X belongs and does not
belong to X. In other words: an example/exemplar of X is and is not an X.
Following Goodrich and Condello, we can say that the exemplar is an empty signiﬁer,
“pure form, mere habit, a singular universal”.27
An example/exemplar is a signiﬁer
with two opposing meanings. This contradiction, however, does not lead to
the collapse of the whole system. Quite the opposite: this contradiction is at the
core of the logic of exemplarity.28
This logic is thus paraconsistent.29
Exemplary cases are self-referential, as pointed out by Condello.30
Their selfreference
is, however, contradictory. Or to put it more aptly, the logic of exemplarity
reaches its point of inconsistency precisely when the example/exemplar is
applied to itself: that is, when it is asked whether the exemplar of X is an X,
whether the exemplar is self-referential. Utilising Terrone’s terminology again,
this question can be rephrased in an explicitly self-referential manner: is the
exemplar of X like itself? One can ask this question about any object a: is a like
itself? Is a like a? And in this paraconsistent setting, the answer would be: it is
and it isn’t.
Referring back to the discussion from the previous section, we can ask an
analogous question about examples: does an object exemplify itself? Of course it
does (this was our point of departure). However, it also exempliﬁes something
else, namely any class that has this object as an element. Hence, it is now clear
that an object does not exemplify just itself and nothing else.
This logic of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion applies to singular examples
as well as universal exemplars. That is to say, it refers to the whole deconstructive
interval between the example and the exemplar. A singular case, some
instance of X, in order to become an example, i.e. to exemplify the whole class X,
has to step out of X and assume the role of the exemplar. In contrast, the exemplar
of X, initially excluded from X, is like any element of X; it must be able to
substitute for any element and step into X. In short, the example, in order to
exemplify, must assume the role of the exemplar, and, conversely, the exemplar,
in order to exemplify, must become an example.
We are now in a position to describe the connection between the structure of
exemplarity and differance in more explicit terms. Differance marks the possibility
of any difference between presence and absence within any system of signs.
But because of its being a precondition of the difference between presence/
absence, differance is both present and absent. Differance is both inside the
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MÁCHA • THE LOGIC OF EXEMPLARITY
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system and outside the system. Exemplarity ﬁts into this paradoxical structure.
The exemplar of X precedes the class X, i.e. it is outside X and, at the same time,
as an example, it is inside X. Any element from X can become an example/exemplar
and thus step outside of X. This means, however, that the point of undecidability
may appear anywhere in a system of signs, and it is not restricted to
peculiar expressions like differance, trace, supplement or gift.
As we have seen, the paraconsistent approach to exemplarity has also been
advanced by Derrida31
and by Agamben, with his contradictory expression
“exclusive inclusion”. It is also quite explicit in Condello, who says: “There is no
exemplarity without contradiction”.32
In the ﬁnal part of this article, I shall
argue that paraconsistency is not the only way of conceiving the logic of exemplarity.
My account is motivated by the following remark by Wittgenstein about
the standard metre in Paris: “There is one thing of which one can state neither
that it is 1 metre long, nor that it is not 1 metre long, and that is the primordial
metre [Urmeter] in Paris.”33
Wittgenstein speaks about the Urmeter (and also
about the Urelement and the Ursepia) with a clear allusion to Goethe’s notion of
Urpﬂanze, the primordial plant. This way of putting it highlights the fact that
there is no preceding category, no preceding unit of length. I will use the expression
“standard metre” only because it is common in recent debates.
Here, we have a single element—the standard metre—that is, the exemplar
of the property “being one metre long”. This is an exemplar of X, as discussed
above. Wittgenstein now claims that one can state of this exemplar neither that
it has the property of “being one metre long”, nor that it does not have this property.
One can say of the exemplar of X neither that it is an X, nor that it is not
an X. Wittgenstein is clear that this is not an extraordinary property of the
material stick: “But this is, of course, not to ascribe any remarkable property to
it, but only to mark its peculiar role in the game of measuring with a metre-
rule.”34
What makes the standard metre extraordinary is its peculiar role of
being an exemplar. There is no preceding category within which the stick could
be extraordinary. The standard metre is thus the Urmeter, a pure exemplar.
Before moving on, let us try to explain the peculiarity of the standard metre
without invoking any logical puzzles. The attribution that the standard metre is
(or is not) one metre long can be taken as an instance of Ryle’s concept of category
mistake.35
We commit a category mistake if we take the university as an
institution on par with colleges, laboratories and ofﬁces (Ryle’s example). We can
also extend the notion of category mistake to cases of wholly nonsensical attribution,
such as Chomsky’s “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”. However, as the
name indicates, category mistakes consist in violating an established categorial
hierarchy. These mistakes can also be intentional or “calculated,” and can be
explained as metaphors or other kinds of ﬁgurative language.36
This is, however,
not the case when someone says that the standard metre is one metre long.
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There is no mistake involved in saying this. Nor is it a case of metaphor. From
the commonsensical point of view, there is nothing peculiar about saying that the
standard metre is—obviously, trivially—one metre long (cf. the discussion below).
The peculiarity of this claim comes to light only if one realises its self-referential
character. And it is this peculiarity that leads to the employment of a non-standard
logic.
Paracomplete logic can be deﬁned as a logic that violates the law of the
excluded middle (either a proposition is true, or its negation is true).37
“The
standard metre is one metre long” is precisely such a proposition. One way of
interpreting this situation is that the domain of application of the predicate
“being one metre long” is restricted. It is restricted at precisely one point, the
point of self-reference. The predicate “being one metre long” is applicable to every
material (and geometrical) object except the standard metre itself. The underlying
logic is paracomplete because the domain of application of the term “being
one metre long” is incomplete.38
In Terrone’s terms, if one asked whether the standard metre is like itself (or
more speciﬁcally, whether it has the same length as itself), the question must be
rejected as nonsensical, because it lies outside the scope of the relationship of
likeness. This approach is, I think, closer to the common-sense view than saying
that a thing is and is not like itself, as the paraconsistent approach has it. The
latter is instead a kind of philosophical sophistry.
The paracomplete approach is not entirely commonsensical, though. One
could object along the commonsensical lines that the stick that is the standard
metre must have a particular length—as any spatial object does. Even if we cannot
compare it with itself (or say that it is like itself), we can certainly compare
it with another standard stick, e.g. the standard inch. One can say of the standard
metre that it is 39.37 inches long. Now, if 39.37 inches mark the same length
as one metre, then we can say that the standard metre is one metre long.39
To reply to this objection: this detour via another standard of length is possible
if there is another standard. We are talking about the primordial metre,
the hypothetical very ﬁrst standard of length. We must not presuppose any preexisting
standard when we deﬁne or describe the standard metre. Let us put
this aside and suppose there are indeed several standards of length and that
we can convert one measure into another (as, indeed, we can in fact do).
However, if we say that the standard metre is 39.37 inches long, what is meant
by the phrase “standard metre” is only the bare stick, deposed of its role of
being a standard of length. Wittgenstein expresses this idea more generally:
“one sentence can never describe the paradigm in another, unless it ceases to be
a paradigm.”40
Hence, asking about the length of the standard metre in fact
means asking about the length of the bare stick that, for the time being, has
ceased to be a standard.
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MÁCHA • THE LOGIC OF EXEMPLARITY
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What Wittgenstein means by paradigm is—to take up our terminology—an
exemplar, which is, as we know, not entirely distinguishable from an example.
The example/exemplar of X is excluded from the scope of application of the predicate
X in our paracomplete setting. By considering whether the example/exemplar
of X is an X via a detour through another example/exemplar, the object is
reincluded in the scope of the predicate X. The lesson is that the inclusion or
exclusion of an example/exemplar is not static and ﬁxed once and for all, but is,
rather, dynamic and ﬂuctuating.
EXAMPLES OF EXAMPLES
Before summarising the main points of this article, a methodological meta-discussion
is in order. This article is about how we treat examples. In the course of
the argument, I could not refrain from using speciﬁc examples (a dog, the standard
metre, etc.). They function, so to speak, as examples of examples. Two claims
can be made about these squared examples. Firstly, these examples are partly
exemplars of examples, i.e. exemplars of exemplarity, and secondly, one can neither
say that they are examples/exemplars, nor that they are not examples/exemplars.
It is not difﬁcult to realise why this must be so. The primary function of
examples is to exemplify their subject matter. In the present context, however,
they exemplify their exemplarity, i.e. how exemplarity (of these examples) is supposed
to work. We are interested in (the notion of) exemplarity, not in speciﬁc
breeds of dogs or units of length. What matters here is the examples’ other law.
They are supposed to reveal something universal about exemplarity and, hence,
they are not mere examples. At the same time, they are suspended from their
primary exemplifying function (their law) in order to exemplify their exemplarity
(the other law). Hence our paracomplete perspective: we cannot say that they are
(regular) examples, and we cannot say they are not examples.
It may be helpful here to present a few more cases of examples/exemplars
that exemplify their exemplarity. Let us consider a situation in which someone is
buying a car. In a showroom, there are cars a prospective buyer can look at or
take on a test drive. These cars are, however, not for sale. They are mere (illustrative)
examples of what the buyer will get if they decide to buy. These cars are
also (normative) exemplars. If the buyer makes a purchase, they can expect to
get a car that is—in certain respects—like the example/exemplar in the showroom.
The showroom sells cars of particular brands and models/lines, such as the
Mercedes-Benz A 35. In the paraconsistent setting, the show car is both included
in this class (it is a car of this model) and excluded from it (it is not for sale despite
being a car of this model). In the paracomplete setting, the class of cars for
sale is restricted from the outset. In the advertisement “Mercedes-Benz A35 for
sale”, the domain of the predicate “Mercedes-Benz A35” is, implicitly, restricted
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so that it excludes show cars. Neither the notice “For sale” nor the notice “Not
for sale” can be put on a show car. The car dealer can, of course, offer a show car
for sale, usually at a discount, after it has ceased to be a show car (i.e. ceased to
be an example/exemplar). The same point can be made about any product that is
used to advertise a whole class. This contrasts with cases where a singular product
advertises only itself, e.g. a house that has been put up for sale. Advertising
a class is a special case of exemplifying. However, using a product in an advertisement
can disrupt its primary use. So, for example (another example of an
example), when a piece of bread is displayed in a shop window, it becomes stale
and cannot be sold as a regular piece of bread.
My ﬁnal example of an example is one that is abundant in Derrida’s writings:
the handwritten signature. Let us consider our (legal) practices with handwritten
signatures. We distinguish between an example of a person’s own signature, on
the one hand, and an exemplary or specimen signature of that person (kept, say,
by a bank) on the other. A signature is recognised as authentic if it is similar
enough to the specimen signature. It is never quite determinate which speciﬁc
features of these two signatures (e.g. certain curves, the thickness of certain
lines) are supposed to match (essential features), and which are merely supplementary
or accidental. Any example of an authentic signature can determine
more essential features of the specimen signature. In this sense, an example of a
signature is (or at least determines) an exemplar. The second point (about paracompleteness)
is also not difﬁcult to make. Neither an example of a signature nor
a specimen signature can be used to sign or certify anything (they are suspended
from a signature’s primary function). Nor are they forged signatures. With
respect to the example/exemplar of a signature, it makes no sense to say either
that it is authentic or that it is forged.41
CONCLUDING REMARKS
By way of conclusion, let me sum up the main points I have raised. The background
to this discussion is the view that exemplary cases mediate between the
singular and the universal. I took this thesis from Angela Condello’s book
Between Ordinary and Extraordinary, primarily because this work clearly and
lucidly brings together several threads of recent discussions. Following Derrida’s
method of deconstruction, I have argued that the topic of exemplarity is pervaded
by the ambiguity between the singular example and the universal exemplar (or
model, paradigm). The notions of example and exemplar defy ﬁxed identities;
rather, they mark the poles of a deconstructive interval referring to the original
differance. What may seem to be a predicament is, in fact, the core of how exemplarity
actually works. The inexpressible exemplarity of the example, which is at
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work both in examples and exemplars, makes it possible that one can reach
the other.
This ultimate impossibility of distinguishing between the example and the
exemplar allows us to challenge the predominant paraconsistent logic of exemplarity.
The received view is that an example/exemplar is both included in and
excluded from the class it is supposed to exemplify. I have proposed the alternative
paracomplete view that one can say of an example/exemplar neither that it
belongs to the class it exempliﬁes, nor that it does not belong to this class.
These challenges are not meant to replace the received account of exemplarity,
but rather to complement it. The advantage of my proposals is that they
open up the possibility to conceive of an example/exemplar without any pre-existing
category, a pure example.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank Miroslav Kantek, Karl-Friedrich Kiesow, Herbert Hrachovec and
especially Michaela Fiserova for their helpful comments.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Jakub Macha http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6394-5173
1. Giorgio Agamben, The Coming Community
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1993), Giorgio Agamben, The Signature of All
Things: On Method (New York: Zeno Books,
2009), Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign
Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1998). Several other landmark publications
should also be mentioned: two edited volumes—
Gelley’s Unruly Examples (1995) and Lowrie and
L€udemann’s Exemplarity and Singularity (2015)—
and four monographs—Fleming’s Exemplarity and
Mediocrity (2009), Hollander’s Exemplarity and
Chosenness (2008), Ferrara’s The Force of the
Example (2008) and Harvey’s Labyrinths of
Exemplarity (2012) – Alexander Gelley, Unruly
Examples: On the Rhetoric of Exemplarity
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995),
Michele Lowrie and Susanne L€udemann, eds.,
Exemplarity and Singularity: Thinking through
Particulars in Philosophy, Literature, and Law
(London: Routledge, 2015), Paul Fleming,
Exemplarity and Mediocrity: The Art of the Average
from Bourgeois Tragedy to Realism (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2009), Dana
Hollander, Exemplarity and Chosenness:
Rosenzweig and Derrida on the Nation of
Philosophy (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2008), Alessandro Ferrara, The Force of the
Example: Explorations in the Paradigm of Judgment
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2008),
Irene Harvey, Labyrinths of Exemplarity: At the
Limits of Deconstruction (Albany: SUNY
Press, 2012).
2. Angela Condello and Alessandro Ferrara, eds.,
“Exemplarity and Its Normativity,” Law &
Literature 30:3 (2018), Angela Condello, Between
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Ordinary and Extraordinary: The Normativity of the
Singular Case in Art and Law (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
3. Other ways include Plato’s methexis, Aristotle’s
energeia, Kant’s schematism (and to some extent
his method of reﬂective judgement) and various
accounts of the (productive) imagination or
symbolism. For an extended discussion of
various “third terms” see Jacques Derrida, “I
Have a Taste for the Secret,” in Jacques Derrida
and Maurizio Ferraris, A Taste for the Secret
(Cambridge: Polity, 2001), 5, 75. See also
Maurizio Ferraris’s essay in this volume.
4. Cf. Agamben, “Example,” in Coming
Community, 9ff.
5. Cf. Alessandro Ferrara, “Exemplarity in the Public
Realm,” Law & Literature 30:3 (2018), 387–399
for discussion of various domains of exemplarity.
6. Ferrara, The Force of the Example, 3.
7. Here and later, I am invoking the very
illuminating neo-Aristotelian (or rather
Strawsonian) terminology advanced by Enrico
Terrone, “Be Like This: Norms, Examples,
Documents and Indexicals from a NeoAristotelian
Perspective,” Law & Literature 30:3
(2018), 449–463.
8. This is not to say that this terminological
convention should be standardised and imposed
on others. I maintain, however—though without
arguing for it here—that the points I go on to
make in this article are largely independent of
the terminological choices mentioned here.
9. Agamben refers to a different, albeit related,
distinction between exemplar and exemplum:
“Sextus Pompeius Festus informs us that the
Romans distinguished exemplar from exemplum.
The exemplar can be observed by the senses
[ … ] and refers to that which one must imitate
[ … ]. The exemplum, on the other hand, demands
a more complex evaluation (which is not merely
sensible [ … ]); its meaning is above all moral
and intellectual.” (Agamben, “What Is a
Paradigm?,” in The Signature of All Things: On
Method, 18.
10. Tiziano Toracca, “Towards Exemplarity: When
the Particular Matters,” Law & Literature 30:3
(2018), 469.
11. Jacques Derrida, “Passions: “An Oblique
Offering””, in Derrida: A Critical Reader, ed. David
Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 15.
12. Gelley, Unruly Examples, 2.
13. As Terrone writes: “one might try to overcome
the dependence of examples on concepts by
relying on series of examples and contextual
factors. [ … ] Thus, a series of examples, unlike a
single example, seems to be capable of
functioning independently of concepts and even
leading us to grasp the corresponding concept.”
“Be Like This”, 455.
14. Peter Goodrich, “The Example of Undressing:
Obnubilations on the Empty Space of the Rule,”
Law & Literature 30:3 (2018), 409. Cf. also
Gelley, Unruly Examples, 2: “the example is never
merely an instance; it is an instance plus its
vector of reception.”
15. The argument rests on the intuition that to say
that something matters is an informal way of
saying that it is essential. This essentiality is, in
fact, something universal. To reiterate our
previous example, having four legs is a part of
the essence of the concept of dog, whereas the
property of having a white coat with black spots
is not. However, if this property matters, if it is
essential, we are dealing with the concept of a
Dalmatian. The point is that this example can
override the original concept (of a dog) and
exemplify something else, e.g. a panda or a
horse that has a similar coat pattern.
16. Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx (New York:
Routledge, 2006), 41.
17. Jacques Derrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 159.
18. Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 79.
19. Cf. Matthew Roller’s way of putting this:
“Derrida contends that serial exempla have a
dual allegiance, both to “the law” under which
they are expressly marshaled (the classical
category) and to an “other law” that emerges
from their piecewise interrelationships
(accounting for nonclassical behavior).” Matthew
Roller, “Between Unique and Typical: Seneca
exempla in a List,” in Lowrie and L€udemann,
Exemplarity and Singularity, 82.
20. Jacques Derrida, Glas (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1986), 149–150.
21. Cf. Roller again: “In Derridean terms, an “other
law” emerging from the exempla themselves—
revealed in the ﬁrst exemplum, and reiterated in
the second—threatens to overturn altogether
“the law” ensconced in the framing argument.”
Roller, “Between Unique and Typical”, 89.
22. As is well known, Kuhn uses the term
“paradigm” in both a broad and a narrow sense.
In the broad sense, a paradigm stands for “the
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MÁCHA • THE LOGIC OF EXEMPLARITY
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entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques”
of a scientiﬁc community, whereas in the narrow
sense, it stands for a speciﬁc puzzle solution, an
“exemplary past achievement”. This latter
narrow sense of paradigm is close to the term
“exemplar” discussed here. Moreover, for Kuhn
an “anomaly” is a violation of the expectations
induced by a paradigm. In the light of the
paradigmatic theory, it is something accidental,
an accident. In the normal mode of discovery, an
anomaly can be assimilated; it can lead to an
adjustment of the paradigmatic theory. An
anomaly can also, however, precipitate a crisis
which leads to the emergence of a new
paradigm: “Sometimes the shape of the new
paradigm is foreshadowed in the structure that
extraordinary research has given to the
anomaly.” That is to say, the anomaly becomes
part of (the essence of) the new paradigm. Cf.
the chapters “Anomaly and the Emergence of
Scientiﬁc Discoveries” and “Postscript—1969” in
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientiﬁc
Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2012).
23. Jacques Derrida, “Differance”, in Margins of
Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1982), 11.
24. I provide an extended discussion of exemplarity
and deconstruction in my article “Reverberating
the glas: Towards a Deconstructive Account of
Particularity in Hegel’s Logic of the Concept,”
forthcoming in Hegel Bulletin.
25. Angela Condello, “Exemplarity: Story, Time and
Gesture of a Threshold,” Law & Literature 30, no.
3 (2018): 447.
26. Agamben, Homo Sacer, 22. Another illuminating
formulation of this paradox by Agamben is: “to
give an example is a complex act which
supposes that the term functioning as a
paradigm is deactivated from its normal use, not
in order to be moved into another context but,
on the contrary, to present the canon—the
rule—of that use, which can not be shown in
any other way.” (Agamben, “What Is a
Paradigm?,” 18) Agamben is suggesting, very
much in accord with the present line of
argument, that taking something as an example
implies its functioning as a paradigm.
27. Goodrich, “The Example of Undressing”, 419.
28. In her discussion of Derrida’s works, Hollander
remarks: “the paradox of all exemplarism: that in
order to be most itself, Europe must open itself
up to its other, to humanity in general. [ … ] This
is paradoxical because it consists in equating the
European project with the project of denying its
very particularity.” (Exemplarity and
Chosenness, 113)
29. For the purpose of this article, we do not need
to go into the intricate details of paraconsistent
logic. It is enough to conceive of paraconsistent
logic as a logic that is inconsistency-tolerant, a
logic that blocks the principle of explosion, i.e. the
principle that contradiction entails everything.
30. Condello, Between Ordinary and Extraordinary, 46.
31. See the explicit contradiction in the quotation
from Derrida above: “The exemplarity of the
example is clearly never the exemplarity of the
example.” Cf. also the work of Graham Priest,
who identiﬁes a paraconsistent logic at work in
Derrida’s deconstruction. See, for instance,
Graham Priest, “Derrida and Self-reference,”
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72, no. 1
(1994): 103–111. A paraconsistent interpretation
of Derrida’s deconstruction has been advanced
by Paul Livingston, The Politics of Logic: Badiou,
Wittgenstein, and the Consequences of Formalism
(New York: Routledge, 2012), 113–130.
32. Condello, “Exemplarity: Story, Time and Gesture
of a Threshold,” 447.
33. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), §50,
translation amended.
34. Ibid., translation amended.
35. Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London:
Routledge, 2009), Chapter I.
36. Goodman regards metaphor as a “calculated
category mistake”. Cf. Nelson Goodman,
Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of
Symbols (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), 73.
37. Again, no detailed knowledge of paracomplete
logic is needed for the present discussion. For a
good introduction see Andrea Loparic and
Newton da Costa, “Paraconsistency,
Paracompleteness, and Valuations,” Logique et
Analyse 27, no. 106 (1984): 119–131.
38. My discussion of two different accounts of
exemplarity, paraconsistent and paracomplete, is
inspired by Livingston’s classiﬁcation (in The
Politics of Logic) of four orientations of thought.
Among them, he considers two so-called postCantorian
orientations: paradoxico-critical
(complete, inconsistent) and generic (consistent,
incomplete). As already mentioned, Livingston
interprets Derrida’s deconstruction in the
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LAW & LITERATURE
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paradoxico-critical (i.e. paraconsistent) manner.
Moreover, he interprets the later Wittgenstein’s
philosophy in the same way. In contrast, I
propose a paracomplete (i.e. generic in
Livingston’s terms) reading of the later
Wittgenstein. It must be admitted that many of
Wittgenstein’s remarks, explicitly or implicitly,
suggest a paraconsistent interpretation. I
maintain, however, that the remarks that I am
referring to, esp. §50 of the Philosophical
Investigations, instead follow a
paracomplete logic.
39. This objection was famously raised by Saul
Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Oxford: Blackwell,
1980), 54.
40. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), 346. I investigate this
remark in detail in my article “Paradigms and
Self-Reference: What is the Point of Asserting
Paradoxical Sentences?”, in Wittgensteinian (adj.):
Looking at the World from the Viewpoint of
Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, eds. Shyam Wuppuluri
and Newton da Costa (Cham: Springer,
2020), 123–134.
41. For a thoughtful deconstructive perspective on
handwritten signatures, see Michaela Fiserova,
“Pragmatical Paradox of Signature,” Signata 9
(2018), 485–504.
Jakub Macha is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Masaryk University, Brno,
Czech Republic. He has published several books and articles on Hegel,
Wittgenstein and philosophy of art. His recent work concerns the problem of
exemplarity, paradigmatic samples and self-reference in contemporary
epistemology and logic.
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